Sustainability
The RBC Convention Centre continues to work hard to develop and sustain an overall greener facility.
The convention centre has been a BOMA BESt certified building by the Building Owners and Managers Association. BESt stands for Building Environmental Standards, and BESt-certified buildings lead the way in energy and water conservation, waste reduction, indoor air quality and operational best practices.
Having received our LEED® Silver Certification, we are proud to meet one of the highest environmental performance standards in the world, assessed by site development, water efficiency, energy efficiency, material selection, indoor air quality and innovation in design.
Innovations toward a sustainable future
We continue to monitor our resource consumption, expand and improve processes and implement new technologies that support a greener facility.
Here are some highlights of our sustainability program:
- Waste Diversion Program to encourage large events in our building to compost and recycle
- Elimination of printed signage by installing digital signage throughout both buildings
- First convention centre in Canada to support the Fair Trade Town global initiative by providing companies and organizations holding events in our building the support they need to be designated as a Fair Trade Event
- Installation of a heat recovery system which is eliminating all natural gas consumption required to heat domestic hot water
- Computer system that monitors all of the engines in the facility, turning them off during off-peak hours (in unused space or overnight)
- Additional electrical circuits in order to turn off lights/power in stages
- Replacement of all incandescent and mercury light fixtures with energy efficient options that not only utilizes less energy but require replacement less frequently
- Timers to operate the parkade lights (reduced during off-peak hours)
- Automation of trade show service forms, eliminating printed materials, envelopes and postage required to mail the thousands of packages to show managers and exhibitors
- Donation or sale of used materials/items in any remodeling processes (all fixtures, wiring, furniture are donated or sold at a reduced rate)
- Hybrid heating system that uses real time intelligent controls to track and manage heating demand and automatically switches between fossil fuel based heating sources and electric heat to reduce energy costs, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and increase efficiencies
- Reduction of plastic water bottles replacing them with water stations
Sustainability and caring for our environment is our priority and we look forward to introducing new initiatives this summer.